Tom and Merope
by Lucillia
Summary: Different ways in which Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt could have gotten together without a love potion ranging from the tragic to the humorous.
1. Counting Sins

They say the wages of sin is death. I know that is true. Tonight, God sent someone to pay me in full for the wrongs I committed against my wife.

The first time I met Merope Gaunt, back in the days when she had been allowed to run wild before her mother died and her father started to subdue her, to beat her into submission in an attempt to force her into the role her mother had once occupied, it was not love at first sight. I had called her a hag and threw a rock at her. She called me every name in the book - many of which I had never heard before - and despite being two years younger than me and half my size gave me a black eye and a split lip. It was the beginning of a rather interesting and all too brief friendship in the halcyon days when I and a gang of local boys plus Merope (on the few occasions she had been able to give her drunkard father and older brother the slip with help from her mother) had run through the streets of Little Hangleton and the surrounding woods and fields getting into mischief before I had been dragged back to the manor and forced to learn how to be a gentleman. After that all too brief summer where I had run wild with Merope, the cook's son and a small band of local rascals I hadn't seen much of her.

During the years I was away at boarding school, and spending my summers with my new friends who were all in my social class, I grew up to be a near clone of my father and the surprisingly ugly child that was Merope Gaunt had grown up to be a rather plain young woman. When I saw her upon returning home from a tour of the continent after my graduation, I barely recognized her. If it weren't for the odd fact that Merope had what looked to be two lazy eyes, I probably would not have. The wild hellion who had followed after me and my childhood friends and had a right hook that knocked one of the largest of the local bullies into next week was replaced by a shy creature that would peek out at me from her garden hedge, gazing at me and something nearby in a rather adoring and almost worshipful manner when she thought I wasn't looking. I pitied her. When it came to her father and her brother, I looked down upon them in disdain, but her I pitied.

Probably the worst of the sins I committed against Merope had been the fact that I had never loved her.

Marrying Merope had been one of my first and one of my last acts of rebellion against my father. I had honestly tried to court Cecilia as my parents had wanted, and there were times when I had been almost happy during our time together, but I could never bring myself to marry her. Marriage to Cecilia was seen as advantageous for both our families as while hers was on a slightly higher rung of the social ladder, ours had more money. There was every logical reason for marrying her but one, I was afraid of her. When she thought I wasn't looking or I wasn't around, I tended to catch small glimpses of what was lurking beneath the mask that was her face, and I didn't like what I saw. Considering the number of husbands she has gone through since our failed courtship, I believe my decision not to marry her had been the correct one. Chances are that had I married Cecilia, I would have been dead within three years of the wedding, and the fortune my family had spent generations amassing would be in her hands like those of "Dear Roland", "Darling Edward" and "Peter Dear".

My father who wanted to build connections in circles higher than ours had decided one evening that I had been stalling long enough and ordered me to propose to my "Cecilia darling" before the week was out. I told him that I would rather marry Merope Gaunt, and God help me, I followed through. It had been some point after my father and I had been arguing for at least two hours that I had decided to show him I was serious about the fact that I would rather marry the Gaunt girl than Cecilia. I stormed over to the Gaunt shack and proposed to Merope that night. I am sometimes eaten with guilt when I remember the look of utter joy on the poor girl's face. Merope and I were wed in Greater Hangleton the next morning and decided to go to London to wait for my father to cool down.

Despite being well...ugly, Merope was just about everything a man would want in a wife. I am certain that if I hadn't foolishly run off with her to prove some stupid point to my father, she would have made someone very happy. She had devoted herself to me utterly from our wedding day. Her very existence had revolved around my comfort, but unfortunately, with our limited means there had been little she could do in that area. The poor girl had been forced to stretch our budget nearly to the breaking point several times because I absolutely had to have some thing we couldn't really afford.

Had I been less wealthy growing up, less used to the luxuries I had taken for granted, we may have made a nice life together in London. I had found a job within a few days of our arrival and we soon procured a small flat that we moved into almost immediately. While it was practically heaven for Merope who had grown up poor without the conveniences of electricity and modern plumbing, it was nearly hell for me. Growing up in a large manor had not prepared me for life in a small apartment. Setting out early in the morning six days a week for a tedious and rather boring job had taken a great deal of getting used to as well. The work I did was far from onerous, but it was a far cry from the days of leisure I had grown accustomed to and was far beneath what was acceptable for one of my social standing or rather what was then my former social standing. The idea that if I lost the job Merope and I could very well starve had been a hard one to swallow. I had not been ready for the responsibilities and hardships of life outside my family's estate, and if I had known what would be ahead, I would have chosen differently.

It had been during a particularly bad month that the letter begging me to "Cease my childish behavior and come home." had arrived. Through no fault of my own, I had become unemployed and found myself looking for work. Jobs unfortunately, weren't as readily available as the year before and I found myself still looking after three weeks rather than a few days. Then there was the added stress of learning that I would become a father sometime very late that Autumn or early that Winter. What little savings Merope and I had managed to scrape together were rapidly being depleted.

I think the last straw had been my birthday. I had grown accustomed to exceedingly lavish affairs at which I was the center of attention for that one day of the year. The small cake and the rather inexpensive gift brought home to me how far I had fallen in a way that nothing else could. I think when I left Merope that night as she slept, leaving a note telling her I'd send divorce papers at a later date on my pillow I had expected everything to miraculously return to the way it was before, that the magic that Merope had sworn before a priest never to use again would turn the world back to where it had been when I had foolishly run away taking my poor childhood friend along for the ride. I had half expected to see Merope peering through the garden hedge at me with that adoring look as I made my way to the one place where I knew I wasn't one pay day away from starvation.

When the world failed to return to where it had been before, I had waited for my wife who hadn't been in the apartment when the papers had arrived to show up at the shack in which she had been raised. She didn't. The shack became empty when old Marvolo died that Winter and remained so until Marvolo's son got out of prison.

The second worst sin I committed against Merope had been leaving her alone and pregnant in London without any means of support. The third worst would have to have been that I had allowed my parents to slander what little good name Merope had left in the village as they came up with an excuse for why I returned without my wife. I think some of the villagers suspect that I have murdered her, and I know now that that is close enough to the truth. Her death had been my fault. She died homeless, alone, and half-frozen giving birth to my son in an orphanage.

As my child brings death to me as he had his mother, I go knowing that God has given me the son I deserve.


	2. Sex Obsessed Tom

Thomas Riddle growled in frustration as he threw one of his mother's hideous vases against the wall. That necklace had cost over a hundred pounds and all he had gotten from that frigid bitch Cecilia for it was a chaste kiss on the cheek. Three months of pursuing the girl, three months of carriage rides, fancy dinners and expensive gifts, and all he got for it was a goddamn kiss on the cheek each and every time. Whoever it was that said that Cecilia was willing to drop her knickers whenever she was asked was a damned liar.

Knowing his mother would be extremely upset at him if he broke another one of her "Priceless" antiques, he decided to take a walk until he had calmed down. A couple hours later he found himself hot, tired, thirsty, covered in sweat and standing on the Gaunt property, having wandered through the stand of woods that surrounded it.

"Oh, hello." the Gaunt daughter whose name he could never remember said before blushing shyly. She'd cleaned up a bit since the last time he'd seen her, but she was still ugly.

"Er, bye." he said as he turned to go.

"D-D-Do y-you w-want s-something t-to d-drink?" the Gaunt girl stammered, red as a beet, one eye looking at him and the other looking at a tree or something.

After mentally debating over accepting a drink from someone whose house looked like it hadn't been cleaned in the last century now or waiting until he had walked the several miles back to his house to get a drink for about a minute, his thirst won out.

"Yes. Thank You." he said, wondering if he was going to regret this.

The Gaunt girl went inside and fetched a tin cup, then she went over to the small well that was located about a hundred feet away from the shack in which she lived, chucked a cauldron on a rope into it and hauled it back up. She then filled the cup from the cauldron and handed it to him.

He looked into the cup dreading what he would see. Fortunately, the water was only slightly murky, but...

"There's a newt in it." he said.

"M-My f-father says that's how you know it's fresh." the Gaunt girl said as she gazed up at him adoringly.

Sighing, he pulled the newt out of the cup and chucked the offending creature over his shoulder. Other than a rather brackish thing that could barely be called a stream that he wouldn't touch in a thousand years, this was the only water for miles. The girl gazed up at him adoringly as he drank. Or at least one of her eyes did, the other seemed to be looking at a bush to his left. It was probably the look the girl was giving him that reminded him of what one of his friends had told him about plain looking girls and what they would do for you if you just gave them a little bit of attention. "Besides, you could always close your eyes." his friend Michael had said as he pointed out a somewhat ugly looking maid who apparently could do amazing things with her tongue if his friend could be believed, and since Michael wasn't the one who'd told him about Cecilia, he probably could be believed.

"Do you know what a hand job is?" he asked once he'd finished his newt flavored water that had fortunately killed his thirst after making its initial assault on his taste buds.

"N-No." the Gaunt girl said as she shyly took the cup back.

"Would you like to learn?" he asked.

"Y-Yes." the Gaunt girl said looking so happy that she would burst over the fact that he was willing to spend time with her. Whether she would still be that happy after he explained what a hand job was remained to be seen.

**Two months later:**

Thomas Riddle whistled as he made his way to the Gaunt shack. His friend Michael had been right about the plain ones. He hadn't gotten Merope anything more expensive than a hair ribbon, and all he had to say about the return on his investment was WOW!!!!!!!!!!. Merope was willing to do everything he'd fantasized Cecilia doing and then some.

"Tom." Merope said sounding small and frightened the moment she caught sight of him.

"What?" he asked.

"I think I'm pregnant." Merope said.

"Fuck."


	3. Conman Tom

Tom Riddle looked down at the small bottle he held in his hand. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was a Riddle, and Riddles didn't fall in love. Marriage was a matter of business, of advancement, it wasn't a matter of love. There were times when he wished he hadn't been born into such an...unscrupulous family.

Merope had given him the deed to her share of the rather choice land that her family's hovel sat upon. Five generations of effort had just been ended with a bout of ungodly good luck and the stroke of a pen. For five generations his family had been trying to get the Gaunt land as it was the only land in the area that they didn't own, and for five generations the Gaunts had stubbornly clung to every inch of it despite the fact that the sale of their land would have left them reasonably well off. The sizable parcel of woodland that Merope's grandfather had left her had broken the property nearly in half. A half that the Riddle family now posessed.

Several Mrs. Riddles had had their lives cut short by the contents of bottles similiar to this one after they had given the family what they wanted, be it land, money, or connections they wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. Merope, his ugly but surprisingly lovable Merope who had dedicated her entire existence to him since the day of the wedding should be no exception. But she was, and it was tearing him up inside.

-------------

Years after he left Merope - taking the deed to her inheritance - rather than killing her, a boy with his face showed up to kill him. His last thought before the curse hit was that this was what he deserved. Merope had deserved a long and happy life with someone who would have been as devoted to her as she had been to him, not an ignoble death in an orphanage birthing the spawn of a family that may as well have originated in the depths of hell.


	4. Card Shark Merope

Merope sighed as she looked through the rather dusty book. This was no good. She could barely read the recipe since her reading lessons had ended when her mother had died, and she had few if any of the ingredients. Another problem was that she couldn't afford the ones she didn't have. She would have to be creative if she wanted Tom, creative in a way that had been discouraged since her mother had died. Her mother had been one of the few bright ones in the family. It was from her that she learned some aspects of human nature were universal.

Taking stock of everything she had, which admittedly wasn't much, a plan began to form. It was admittedly insane and a real long shot, but considering the fact that Muggles and Wizards alike were suckers for gambling... Fortunately for her plan which was based on the story about how her family had lost the last of their fortune which she had heard as a favorite bedtime story from her mother and as a rant against the Malfoys from her father, all she needed was alcohol (which she had in spades since her father and brother left), muggle money (her mother had squirreled some away for some strange reason) and a deck of cards (the deck her mother had used to play solitaire and her brother had used to teach her poker with before he turned mean was fortunately complete). All she needed was a reason for Tom to stop long enough for her to engage him in a "friendly" game.

As she tried to come up with a reason, she polished the locket her mother once wore until it shined as bright as the sun.

* * *

It was during breakfast that Thomas and Mary Riddle's son Thomas Jr., usually referred to as Tom to avoid confusion wandered in wearing nothing but a dingy bed sheet and smelling strongly of alcohol.

"What happened to you?" Thomas Sr. asked upon spotting his obviously drunk son who had swooped in to grab some toast before heading to his room to get dressed.

"I tried to win that locket off the Gaunt girl." Tom said, as he was heading towards the door.

"How did that end up with you wandering in wearing someones bed sheet?" Thomas Sr. asked.

"I lost five hundred pounds, thirteen acres off our property, my clothes, and we're getting married tomorrow. You can attend the wedding if you like." Tom replied rather casually before he left the breakfast room to get dressed.

"No-one is to hear about this. As far as everyone's concerned Tom is eloping with the Gaunt girl for reasons unknown. Rumors about the boy getting that girl pregnant would be far less embarrassing than stories of how he gambled himself as well as a sizable chunk of our property away." Thomas Sr. said when he finally processed his son's reply.

A year after moving with Merope to London on his father's orders, Tom stormed back into the manor carrying the bag he had left with.

"What are you doing back here and where's your wife?" Thomas Sr. asked.

"She cheated!" Tom roared.

"On you?" Mary asked.

"At cards." Tom said.


	5. An Innocent Mistake

Tom should've known better to mess with magic. Most of the stories about people who'd dealt with witches or the Fair Folk tended to end badly. Sometimes they were smart enough to outwit the unnatural creature they were dealing with, but only after several trials and tribulations. Others, usually the cruel or the undeserving, failed in their task entirely, and ended up suffering a gruesome fate for their pains. His own fate could've been considered merciful considering some of the other options, but it did not feel that way to him.

Being born to parents who scoffed at the idea of magic, labeling it as superstitious nonsense, he had not recognized the spell until it was too late. Seeing as they both had been small children at the time, he had thought she'd been playing at magic when she'd had him make that vow, but as it turned out, it had been all too real, and it had ruined his life.

Some days, he thought she had known what she had done, and on others he figured that she too had been a child who had been unaware of the potential consequences of her actions on that day.

They'd both been young, and allowed to run wild in the woods and fields that surrounded Little Hangleton because they were young, and his Governess had thought that fresh air would do him some good. Because she'd been the tramp's daughter and he'd been the Manor Lord's son, they both had been the odd ones out. Being alone, they had gravitated towards each-other and often played together, when her drunk of a father let her out of the house that was.

One day, they'd been sitting by the murky stream that had marked the far border of his family's property, well away from where the Gaunt shack was located, talking about their futures. He was going to be sent off to school next year, and she would be staying to tend house for her family. After that, when they were really old, like fifteen, he was going to be coming back, and he would marry her since she was the only girl in the world he liked besides his mother.

"You promise?" Merope asked, looking in his general direction with her funny eyes.

"I promise." he said.

"Swear it. Swear on your magic that you'll marry me." Merope said.

Seeing as they'd been playing "wizards" an hour earlier, he'd thought nothing of the girl's words and had so sworn. There had been a bright light following his oath that he'd later come to believe he'd completely imagined. The day he realized that the light might not have been his imagination had been when he'd found that no matter how hard he'd tried, he just could not propose to Cecilia. He loved her dearly, but he could not propose to her.

It was after his third failed attempt to propose to Cecilia that he'd finally remembered that odd day by the stream and decided to go to Merope for some answers. The answers he'd gotten however, he didn't like. Apparently, he and Merope had been betrothed since they were six, and they had to get married or something bad could happen, something bad enough that it might cause them to die.

He went through with the wedding, figuring that he could quietly divorce Merope afterward and marry Cecilia. Things didn't work out that way however. The quiet church wedding that he'd hoped would go unnoticed by the community as he and Merope disappeared to London where he would procure divorce papers and a judge had become the talk of the town by the time they'd reached the train station, and according to everyone, he'd run off with the girl after getting her in the family way.

If only that were true. The truth however was a far different and more difficult story. He'd gotten the divorce papers signed and approved by a judge and all, but apparently, as far as Merope's magic was concerned, he was still married to the girl with whom he'd only consummated the marriage once. Even after the girl had seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth never to be seen again, he had found that he could not propose to Cecilia after they'd rekindled their relationship following his return to Little Hangleton.

Try as he might however, he had never been able to find a way to break the spell that kept him away from his beloved.


	6. What the Heart Remembers

They didn't know what happened, only that the last thing they'd remembered was that the sun had been setting, and now it was rising. Looking at each-other they found that they dearly loved each-other despite the fact that the day before Tom had found Merope to be pitiful and ugly as sin.

Had it only been the day before? It had seemed years and years, but he didn't know why since all he could remember was the day before...

The week they had spent apart had seemed to be the longest and dullest in their lives. It had seemed so sudden to everyone else when they'd eloped, but it strangely hadn't seemed sudden to them. It had just seemed natural. They'd run to London because it was the most exciting place they could think to go after a lifetime in a small town. Everything happened in London.

Life in London had proved to be harsh ad dull. Because Tom's parents had refused to support him, they'd eventually run out of money after Tom had been fired from the last of a string of menial jobs that he hadn't been suited for despite the fact that he was both stronger and faster than his life as the son of a wealthy family in whose home he'd never had to lift so much as a finger could explain.

One day, when it became clear that they both would end up starving soon, Merope did the hardest thing she could do, something that devastated them both. She let Tom go.

"Your parents said they'd take you back." Merope said as she handed the last of their meager savings over to her husband since it was barely enough to get only one person back to Little Hangleton where she'd sworn never to return.

"But what of you?" Tom had asked, his hand trembling, knowing his wife would need some of the money she was giving him for their coming child.

"You know how you can know something you've forgotten with your head with your heart?" Merope replied. "I know with my heart that there's someone out there who won't abandon us, someone who'll come for us."

They embraced one last time.

"Don't worry Tom, I'll see you again someday." Merope said before she finally let him go.

That had been the last time Thomas Riddle son of Thomas Riddle had ever seen his wife. When he'd gotten home, his family had put out a story for why he was back without his wife, and he'd said nothing. Instead, he had stood waiting by the window, waiting for his wife who would always be his one and only, waiting for a sound that only his heart remembered. When his son had shown up after more than sixteen years of waiting, his horror - unlike that of his parents - hadn't been over the existence of his strange and powerful child, it had been over realizing that he and his wife had been well and truly abandoned by someone whose name he could not recall. Someone in whom his heart had placed the entirety of his faith, because whoever he was, he'd never let him or Merope down before.

_In a planet-sized library a man with hair and teeth that would put a young Hermione Granger's to shame rapidly paled as he dropped the children's book he'd been reading as a voice from a couple lifetimes ago screamed the names of two of the companions who had been torn from his side far too soon._


End file.
